Tyger, Tyger
by redonthefly
Summary: It is her first day in the rainforest and she can't breathe. [Elsa/Jane Porter]


_When the stars threw down their spears _  
_And water'd heaven with their tears: _  
_Did he smile his work to see?_  
_Did he who made the Lamb make thee?_  
_- _William Blake

* * *

It is her first day in the rainforest and she can't breathe.

They had docked late in the evening, late enough that there was no light outside the circle of gold from the small oil lamp perched on the prow of the rowboat and in Jane's hand; everything illuminated by the glow came as fragments – her narrow plank of a seat, the ragged ends of bamboo stalks and scattered leaves that marked their trail, the densely woven fabric of her tent.

Jane pointed her in the direction of a cot and she slept, heavily, without regard to the heat, almost as soon as she lay down. In the morning she opened her eyes to sunlight filtered through canvas, and thought she was dreaming of snow.

It is her first day in the rainforest and she can't breathe, but she gets up and brushes her hair and splashes water on her face from a basin (ceramic, printed with tiny pink rosebuds, incongruously placed on a roughly hewn pallet), and dresses: stockings, drawers, petticoats. Overskirt. Shirt. Waistcoat. Jacket.

She puts herself together piece by piece, and by the time she slips the last smooth button into place, she's swaddled tight and calm, just in time, as Jane throws open the flap of her tent, bright eyed and waving a teacup in her direction.

"Elsa, come on out, you'll suffocate in ther – oh." She stops short, and Elsa wonders briefly when the last time was that someone entered her room without knocking.

(Anna. It's always Anna. But this is different.)

"I suppose I should have done a better job helping you pack," Jane chuckles, setting the teacup beside the water basin and stepping further into the tent. She's dressed herself in a linen shirt that a bit too large for her petite frame, sleeves rolled above her elbows, buttons undone past the hollow of her throat instead of primly up her neck, shirttails tucked into a loose skirt, and from the way it hangs against her legs, Elsa can tell she's not wearing a petticoat. Seeing her so different (very, very different actually, from how she dressed in London and Cambridge, an English lady in tidy boots and gloves and a real corset) makes her shiver, so she stands a little straighter and tugs at the cuffs of her sleeves while Jane looks her over, clucking her tongue and tapping one finger against her chin.

"You are going to be miserable in that." she says, pulling her hand away from her face and waggling her fingers. Elsa rolls her eyes, but steps toward her anyway.

"Now then," says Jane, voice slightly appraising, "let's start with this," and reaches for her confidently. Elsa jumps a little when Jane's fingers press gently against her, undoing the buttons on her jacket, hands brisk and quick, pinching the seam along the top of her shoulders so that the thick navy fabric falls down her arms. In a moment, her jacket is being pressed back into her own hands while Jane steps back and looks at her again, eyebrows raised.

It is her first day in the rainforest and Jane is staring at her and she can't breathe.

Under her collar, a bead of sweat threatens to roll down her neck, then freezes, a pearl of ice hidden in the ruff of her own high collared shirt.

The look on her face must be properly terrified, because Jane's face falls from its scientific assessment of Elsa's attire and into a concerned sort of frown.

"I think I'll wear the jacket anyway," Elsa stammers, shaking the fabric out in front of her and slinging it over her back. The heat closes in snuggly around her arms as she buttons it back up, all the way, until she's fully cocooned again in the layers of linen, silk and, wool.

"Whatever you say then," Jane says, voice soft, but she smiles warmly at her again, and wrapping her hand around Elsa's wrist, leads them out of the tent. "Come on now, there's a lot to do today and the tea is getting cold."

* * *

It is her fourteenth day and she is beginning learning where she fits – what her role is between Jane, Molly the cook and her husband Gerald who keep the camp, and Jane's elderly father with his owlish glasses and enthusiastic mustache. While Jane and Elsa trample through the jungle, he spends his days clattering away on a typewriter (formerly grand, with pearl inlays on the keys, tiny bits of ebony and wood sounding out the words) transcribing field notes and Jane's evening recitations – _We saw a flock of Macaws today about two miles south and west of here; a whole flock of them, wonderful bright plumage Daddy, such reds and green and gold, I could barely believe it_ – and more quietly, as the empty spaces between key falls growing in thoughtfulness, after supper while Jane sketches and Elsa reads, writing his own adventure stories.

Elsa knows because she asked, still unsure of what her place is here, so unaccustomed to this setting, these people, and herself – but Jane's father has always spoken to her with kindness and clear honesty: no wondering aloud what may have possessed his naturalist daughter to invite a woman with virtually no scientific experience outside of school books along on an extended field study, and or asking why Elsa accepted, ready to leave her country in the (stable, capable, perfectly acceptable in this scenario _It happens all the time Elsa, just GO_ – hands of her board of advisors and diplomats and younger sister, whose smiling eyes crinkle with something unspoken but understood as she sips her morning coffee, one hand flipping through a newspaper and bouncing a golden haired baby in her lap, looking very startlingly grown up. "_Just go_," Anna repeats, passing the baby into Kristoff's large hands when she begins to fuss, and looking Elsa straight in the eye. "_We've taken care of Arendelle before while you've been away. The world won't end while you go out discovering it._"

Elsa wonders when her baby sister became so wise, and watches the subtle gleam of gold on her finger catch a shaft of morning sunlight. Anna is 26 and she is almost 30, and maybe, just maybe, it time to see the world now after all.)

Jane's father never asks, but Elsa thinks he understands, so she approaches him one evening, clutching a chipped teacup in hand, to peer over his shoulder while he writes.

"What is this?" She asks softly, and he smiles wide, looking somehow delighted, and, scooting over to make room on the bench beside him, pulls a few pieces of paper off the top of a growing stack to the left of the typewriter.

"It is the story of _my_ first field expedition," he says, handing them to her. "I've meant to get it all down for years and years – I've got all my notes in journals and things, but wouldn't you know: it's as fresh in my head as if I were just there. My wife and I," he adds, tapping the paper in Elsa's hand, "We were about your age, I think. We went to New Zealand to study the kiwis – it was _extraordinary_."

He tells her more: about how they nearly froze on the high steppes and built fires fueled by tightly twisted straw and prairie grass, and how they caught fish in a mountain stream with poles made of felled pine branches and string, how it melted against their tongues, how it was the best food he'd ever tasted.

At some point, well after the oil in their lamps begins to dim and Jane has shuffled off into her tent, Elsa realizes he's not reciting the adventure – he's telling her a love story.

On the first day of the third week, Elsa leaves her jacket draped carefully on her tiny collapsible wardrobe. Her shirt is still buttoned up to her chin, the seed pearls lined up in a neat row against her throat, and although she has not been too hot (she is not so impractical as all that; she knows how to regulate her temperature) this is the first day she is truly comfortable, the first day she can really feel the jungle when she steps out of her tent – the whisper of the sea breeze winding its way inland to ruffle her hair, the green and mossy vivid _life_ of everything seeping in past the barrier of her skin – she is flush with it, knows she's shed more than just her coat.

Jane catches her eye in the mirror above their washbasin, twisting her hair up as usual, and doesn't say anything – just smiles a private sort of smile in her direction before sticking another pin into her bun and announcing herself ready and in desperate need of toast.

By the end of the week, Elsa leaves her buttons undone to her collarbone, laughing as she follows Jane through the winding paths of trees, giddy with the feeling of air on her neck and the look in Jane's eyes as she points out another bright bird or flower, her world growing acre by acre.

* * *

It is her fortieth day in the jungle, or perhaps the fiftieth, and she has stopped counting, stopped worrying about how the days flow past, smooth, velvety humid and soft as the petals she presses carefully into the pages of her notebook (a gift from Jane at the start of their voyage, a fine moleskin with faint blue lines on the top of each page where Elsa carefully stencils in the dates, and thick, crisp parchment below, blank like virgin snow.)

She stopped actually writing in it days ago, sometime after she realized the words has stopped being enough to describe the days, and so now she fills them with scents and memories: a feather no longer than her smallest finger, an almost incandescent blue; flower petals in all shades of red and orange and pink, yellow pollen from the crushed stamens staining the pages; the shadow of dewdrops that dried and dimpled one sheet when Elsa accidentally left it laying open on their camp table overnight.

In three days she has not written a single letter, has not lifted a pen except to let Jane try to teach her how to draw (unsuccessfully), has not worn her jacket, has rolled the long sleeves above her shirt above elbows like Jane, has thrust her hands into a waterfall, has climbed into the impossible sprawling roots of a tree to pluck an unopened blossom from a low hanging branch, has let her braid fall looser and looser, has let herself become heavy and clean from thick jungle rain when they are caught in an unexpected shower, has, has, _has_.

Eventually she asks Jane to teach to travel by treetop. She's only seen her do so a handful of times, chasing after this or that, barefoot and barelegged, skirt tied in knots above her knees, shimmying along the thick mossy branches with breathtaking ease and grace. Elsa has never seen anything like it before, but her whole body thrills with idea of it, of leaving the ground to fly through the canopy on hanging vines and a wish.

When she mentions it the first time, Jane gets very quiet, then stammers something about the teakettle before practically running away in her haste, leaving Elsa standing with a strainer dripping oolong leaves into the dust, very confused.

"Try again," her father says, softly, in his gentle way as he passes by her elbow. "Don't be afraid to ask."

She does, days later, in the late afternoon after they have spent the better half of the day struggling through particularly thick bramble and underbrush (the jungle has its roads, high in the traffic of creatures large and small, but to bear off the beaten path is no small feat, and Jane's curiosities are _frequently_ off the beaten path). They're still quite a way from camp, resting in a clearing. Elsa presses small handfuls of snow against her neck, breathing deep and slow to catch her breath, watching Jane twist her hair back into a bun under her lashes. Jane's cheeks are mottled red, and her hair is falling into her eyes and down across her shoulders even as she tries to tame it, and she's smeared with mud from her wrist all up her arm from shoving branches away with her forearms. At some point she must have brushed her bangs from her face because she has two perfectly parallel lines painted neatly from temple to temple.

Standing there in the dappled sunlight, hands on her hips and huffing with exertion, she is the most beautiful thing Elsa has ever seen.

"Jane," she says, once her breath is clear and she trusts her voice to be steady, "don't you think there might be an easier way to do this? I've seen you – " she stops at the look on Jane's face, which once again has flipped from exuberance to something nearing sad.

"You don't have to," she adds hastily, waving her hands. "I just thought, well. It looks a lot like the ice skating we do at home."

"You really do want to learn, don't you?" Jane asks, voice tinged with humor, for all her more serious expression.

"Yes, I do."

_I want to feel the wind and sky and the trees_, she thinks, but does not say. _I want to be free like you are, like no one is watching._

"Alright," Jane says slowly, pushing a strand of hair out of her face, and fixing Elsa with a look. They stand, eyes locked, measure for measure, until Jane nods, straightens, and pulls herself back into her usual cheerful countenance, fingers tapping excitedly on her hips. She twirls, does a quick survey of the clearing, then grins widely.

"Alright then," she repeats, stooping to peel two fallen shards of vine off the ground. "First lesson: good vine vs. _bad _vine." And she waves them in front of Elsa's nose, laughing, dancing out of the circle of Elsa's reach when she stretches fingers out for them.

"Jane!"

"Ah ah, must be faster than that," she yelps, and skirts out of her way again and again, until Elsa is chasing her in circles, giggling like she hasn't since she was a child, clutching at her side and luminously happy.

Her first real lesson ends (and begins) with her falling, repeatedly, out of a blessedly small tree in a graceless and undignified heap of skirts. Her hands ache, are red and bruised from clutching at branches all afternoon, legs and back and _everything_ sore, but still she's wanting, wanting it so, to see the look in Jane's eyes when she learns how to fly.

At it is, with each time she slips, loses her footing or her grip, Jane winces, wringing her hands from where she watches, either high above or far below.

"It does take a bit of practice, I know," Jane says gently, helping Elsa up from the ground, one calloused hand wrapped daintily around her slim wrist, the other patting her briskly on the back before moving to ruffle the worst of the dust and leaves from Elsa's hair.

Jane is always open and unreserved in how she touches her – her fingers comb through her hair to dislodge sticks, she lays her hands on Elsa's shoulders while she reads, peering over to peek at the pages, a warm palm on the small of her back, guiding without speaking in the vastness of the trees and greenery, grasping her fingers to help her clamber over tall stumps and rocks, or up into the heavy branches of the canopy.

In the later years of her life, the number of people who touch her has doubled and tripled again and again; first it's Anna, with her frequent and enthusiastic hugs – there never has been any sort of restraint there: Anna hugs with her whole self, presses and clings like a limpet, as if Elsa may disappear if she doesn't hang on hard enough. Kristoff doesn't usually hug her, but as is his way, expresses fondness and affection in smaller, subtler ways: laying his hands over hers teaching her how to drive his sleigh, how to tie a proper knot, and where to place her fingers on the smooth and fretted neck of his lute.

Their children are another matter entirely – small fingers tugging at her skirts and clinging to her legs, twisting into her braid (or, memorably, being shoved into her nose and ears), and the soft, barely there whisper of their eyelashes against her cheeks when she carries them to bed, tiny bodies warm and heavy in her arms.

She has learned to cherish each and every one, drinking in her loved ones to fill her formerly parched heart until she's overflowing.

It had been more, more than she had ever thought she would have, or deserve; it had been enough.

And yet.

No guiding or helping hands have ever made her heart race, or caused a rash of gooseflesh all along the back of her arms, an inexplicable chill in the humid jungle air.

"Hmmm?" She has to ask, snapping out of the moment, to register Jane's patiently amused and waiting face.

"I said: perhaps this is enough for today? You look exhausted, poor dear. And sore," she adds sympathetically, when Elsa bends to shake out her skirts and winces, rising slowly.

Elsa spares one more longing look into the treetops and takes Jane's outstretched hand.

"We'll try again tomorrow?"

"Yes, tomorrow."

* * *

It takes several tomorrows, in fact.

But when it happens – _oh_.

She feels it immediately – it's completely and utterly unlike her previous attempts, all grasping and clutching at the trees, failing and falling. Her body has grown harder and strong after months in the jungle, lithe and brown around the edges now, so she barely notices the effort of twining the vines around her forearms, of holding herself in midair.

And in one moment, it becomes effortless.

She's _flying_ - just like she dreamed, and all the forest opens before her. Gone is the thick tangle and indecipherable cross hatching roots and branches; she can see the pathways now, the spaces where she can fit, exactly where to place her hands, which branch to propel herself from next, destination clear and bright as the north star.

Her mind soars and so does her body, for minutes, maybe hours – she really couldn't say – flinging herself deeper into the wilds, chasing the slips of sunlight and the sound of her own laughter. She dimly aware of the sound of Jane following below (bless, Jane is never quiet), rustling along the forest floor and calling excited encouragements.

"You're doing it! You've got it now!" She shouts, a long way down, and a long way off.

Elsa shrieks, a sound of joy she hasn't made since she was a child, chasing Anna around the long halls of the castle, up trees and their skinny branches, through the Arendellian orchards when they were very young. It carries, further than she expects here in the dense trees; the last time she heard herself so willingly loud was on the balcony of her ice palace, singing to the rising sun and the barren snow covered hills.

"Jane! Look, look – I am, I really am – "

She is, of course, until she _isn't_, until she twists her head to see if she can see Jane through the greenery and loses her grip.

As the treetops slip away, the only real thought she has is that it is probably worth it, to fall for so long, if it meant she got to climb so high.

* * *

When she lands, it is thankfully, mercifully, in water. The impact stings the back of her arms and it feels harder on her head that water really aught, but she's mostly ballooned by the volumes of fabric in her petticoats. Opening her eyes into the clear water, it's nothing but cream lace and billowing white clouds of linen; for one blurry moment she's back on the mountain, and the pressure in her chest is loneliness.

_Oh,_ she thinks. _Anna is really going to be angry_.

Before she can do anything more, think anything else, a fish darts in front of her nose, startled into her field of vision by a tanned arm crashing through the water above her head, helping her to stand, pulling her up, up and through the thin sheet of ice on the surface of the pool. She's upright again, gasping, the silt and mud covering the bottom of the pond shifting delicately around her bare feet.

There are tiny floes of ice all around her, but the water itself is oddly warm, stained by hours in the indirect sunlight and sheltered by the grove of trees that surrounds them.

She had not known she'd been afraid.

_Oh_, she thinks again, but it slips out of her mouth and allows a mouthful of water to run in from where it streams out of her hair and down her face and back. She's soaked, heavy in wool.

Jane is standing nearby, a few feet in front of her, up to her waist in water as well, hair hanging loosely in sheets around her shoulders. Her face is flushed (from exertion or emotion, Elsa couldn't say), one stubborn curl of her bangs falling right in the center of her forehead, mouth opening and closing without sound.

In spite of herself, Elsa begins to laugh.

Jane's eyebrows shoot into her hairline, but she doesn't say anything as the mirth tears its way out of Elsa's ribs, through her heart, out her lungs, over her teeth. It hurts, a good hurt, and soon she's sagging with the effort of it.

"I'm the Queen of Arendelle." Her voice is high, slightly frantic. "I covered my kingdom with sleet and snow; I had a _castle_. Made of _ice_."

Her laughter is raucous and unfocused, wild like the jungle around her, then catches, growing thick in her throat. _Well_, she thinks, clutching at her hair, her hips, her sodden clothes. Her life has always been dancing on the fine line between sorrow and joy.

"I was alone," she chokes, tears mingling with pond water on her cheeks. They feel hot, too hot. "I was alone, and now – " she gestures, nearly losing her balance on the soft ground, "now I'm clinging to vines in the jungle, a, a _savage _thing. And Jane – _Jane_ – I don't know who I am."

She's crying in earnest now, but somehow not exactly sad; it's the snow and the ice and rain, the inescapable richness of the forest, the tempest of being alive.

Elsa should know by now – when it rains, it pours. And once again, it's Jane's hand in hers, a gentle touch that brings her safely to shore.

On the bank, her tears turn again to giggles, slightly wet (like the rest of her, which is appropriate, she supposes, in a way) and Jane chuckles softly too while they struggle together to untie the knots in the ribbons that fasten her petticoats – a soft sound that devolves into an uproarious, wordless laughter as their fingers fumble together, feet tripping in the mud until they're both sitting on the sandy bank, breathless, and the bulk of Elsa's underthings hang in a dirty, tattered heap on a tree branch to dry.

"Some Queen you are," Jane says after a time, carding her fingers through her hair and flapping the wet swath of her skirt against her shins. "Look at you now."

"Yes, I suppose I really am a mess, aren't I?" Elsa says with a smile, mimicking Jane in wringing out her skirt. Without the heavy layers underneath, the lightweight wool feels strangely thin against her legs; she can feel the way her calves and heels sink into the spongy earth, and how she's cool and warm both, exposed in the humid air, the pool softening into an almost refreshing dampness against her bare skin.

She breathes.

"You do know, you know," Jane says, voice and eyes clear as she fixes Elsa with a look, head crooked over her shoulder. "Who you are."

"Oh?"

"You're Elsa," she says evenly.

"You make – and I'm sorry about this, I am – truly _terrible _tea. You like wide open spaces, even if they sometimes overwhelm you, because the tiny ones frighten you more. You can ride a horse, but you prefer to walk. You conquered the mountains, then the sea, then the jungle, one right after the other, because you _could_, and you decided you wanted to.

"You're well on your way toward conquering mud too," she adds as an afterthought, and raises a hand to brush a spot on Elsa's cheek.

Elsa can't find her voice – it's lost in the wave of words and the lilt in Jane's voice, in the gentle pressure of small fingers along her face, the memory of open sky – and instead, reaches across the small space between them and curls her hand around Jane's.

"You know so well already," she whispers. "You're Jane. You understand that."

Jane laughs then, not quite the full chuckle-snort belly laugh of real mirth, and gives Elsa's hand a squeeze.

"Ah," she sighs, settling back a little. "Well. _Jane_. Now that's a long story really, darling. Very long. _Quite._"

"Tell me?"

Jane hums, lifting her hand out of Elsa's and twining it into her hair, not meeting her eyes, considering. Elsa waits patiently, not holding her breath but also achingly curious. After a minute, Jane drops her hair and sighs. (Elsa has noticed by now that she plays with it when she's thinking, twines strands around her fingers, messes with her bun and twists it into strange shapes when she's not exactly sure what words to use; it's a stalling mechanism, and Elsa knows stalling when she sees it, but she also understands, so she waits.)

"The short version – and I do mean short, I assure you – is that I knew a man once. A wild man. And he _was _wild, Elsa, you have no idea: sweet and kind and sincere but terribly feral, untamable. And irresistible," she concedes, throwing her a glance. "But I was wild then myself, in a way."

Her voice takes on a different timbre while she speaks, retreating into the memory, winding the story gently, eyes gone long and distant, smile crooked around the edges.

Elsa knows that look too, and how it feels to talk about your scars, and how odd it is when something bright red and throbbing becomes pale, smooth, and nearly beautiful.

"Some wild things are just meant to stay wild," she finishes, and gives Elsa's fingers a squeeze. They've found each other again while she spoke, pale bones in the sand and mud. "It's a kindness, in the end."

"And anyway, your past – that's not what makes you. Informs maybe, but who you _were_ isn't nearly as important as who you _are_, and you get to choose who you want to be each and every morning. That's the beauty of living, isn't it?"

"I suppose."

_Who am I who am I who _– she can't think of who she was when she woke this morning, when she sipped her tea and nibbled bread toasted over camp coals, when she rolled up her sleeves and tied on her skirts, when she climbed into the heavens and became a bird in the wind.

Jane says, "Elsa," and when she looks up, her face is very close, and she is smiling warmly.

"How am I supposed to believe you?" Elsa whispers, and pinches her eyes shut tight. It doesn't help: not for clarity, or the pressure under her chest that feels oddly like heartbreak. "I thought. I _thought_. This was figured out. _Me_."

It is her fifty third day in the rainforest, and her eyes are closed and her fingers are wrapped in Jane's when she feels a slight pressure against her brow as Jane rests her forehead against hers. Her skin is cool, very slightly damp, and this close, Elsa can smell the mix of algae and mud and slate from the water clinging to her hair; a lock of it has fallen forward and brushes against her collarbone.

"You don't have to."

She opens her eyes.

Breathes.

They don't speak for a while – don't need to, really, but just stay still together, leaning lightly into the touch.

After a time, Jane stirs, murmurs "Elsa." Then, "_Elsa_" a touch louder. "Darling. You're making it snow."

Elsa blinks, and finds that yes, around them in the thick jungle air, snowflakes are drifting lazily around them. They rest like crystals, clean and glittering on Jane's shoulders, on her eyelashes and on the tip of her nose.

What a picture they must make, Elsa thinks. Hot and cold together. A storm and the sun.

"That's okay," she whispers. "Love thaws."


End file.
